An assessment arms race and its fallout
High-stakes grading and the case for slow scholarship
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19378482 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tony Harland (0000-0002-0381-9949, University of Otago, corresponding author), Angela McLean (University of Otago), Rob Wass (0000-0002-6760-8227, University of Otago), Ellen Miller, Ellen M Miller (University of Otago), Kwong Nui Sim (0000-0003-2473-8846, University of Otago) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 528-541 |
| Publication date | 2015-05-19 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0260-2938 • E-ISSN: 1469-297X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02602938.2014.931927 |
| OpenAlex | W1981739999 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 32 |
| References cited | 30 |
This research questions the impact of assessment on university teaching and learning in circumstances where all student work is graded. Sixty-two students and lecturers were interviewed to explore their experiences of assessment at an institution that had adopted a modular course structure and largely unregulated numbers of internal assessments. Lecturers rewarded student work with grades and controlled study behaviour with assessment. In some situations it was possible to experience hundreds of graded assessments in an academic year. Students were single-minded when it came to grades and would not work without them. These conditions contributed to competition for student attention and a grading arms race between academics and subjects. In this context, the spaces for achieving certain educational objectives, such as fostering self-motivated learners, were marginalised. Both students and lecturers were unsatisfied with this situation, but neither group could envisage radical change. Students were generally happy to accumulate small marks, while being irritated and stressed by frequent grading. Lecturers were aware of better practices but felt trapped by circumstances. The idea of slow scholarship is introduced to encourage a re-think of such assessment practices, support a positive shift in assessment culture and contribute to the theories of assessment
Formative assessment · Higher education · Mathematics education · Medical education · Pedagogy · Political science · Scholarship · Engineering · Evaluation of Teaching Practices · Medicine · Psychology · Reflective Practices in Education · Student Assessment and Feedback
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The Transition Assessment Design Framework
Assessment of agency or assessment for agency
Realigning the dots
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Formative assessment in Higher Education
A review of the benefits and drawbacks of high-stakes final examinations in higher education
Geography as a vocation? Becoming a geographer under neoliberalism
Undergraduate student perceptions of assessment and feedback practice
Achievement—and what else? The standardisation of semester grades due to the implementation of state-wide exit examinations
The implications of programme assessment patterns for student learning
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What’s in a word? Practices associated with ‘feedforward’ in higher education
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Defamiliarizing assessment and feedback
Implementing summative assessment with a formative flavour
Formative assessment
Assessment by engagement
Crisis? What crisis? Interpreting student feedback on assessment
Are assessments in higher education fair for all? Investigating the association between assessment load and type and students’ academic performance
Degrees of change
I. facing resistance
Undergraduates' assessment enculturation in the neoliberal university
No grades in higher education now!Revisiting the place of graded assessment in the reimagination of the public university
Learning to Teach in Higher Education
The Impact of Assessment on Student Learning
Improving student engagement
Stress and the higher education student
Assessment for Excellence
Freedom to Learn
Aligning assessment with long‐term learning
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
Student perceptions of continuous summative assessment
Towards a scholarship of assessment
Assessment moderation
The Value of a Programme-wide Approach to Assessment
A Call for Slow Scholarship
Empowering participants or corroding learning? Towards a research agenda on the impact of student consumerism in higher education
Assessment relationships in higher education
The Disappearance of Adulthood
A General Inductive Approach for Analyzing Qualitative Evaluation Data
The teacher's soul and the terrors of performativity
Out of Time
Time and Wealth
Boundary-work between work and life in the high-speed university
| Unique citing works | 32 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,2 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2026 (11) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 31 |